La La Land, 2016
A down on his luck jazz musician (Ryan Gosling) and a down on her luck aspiring actress (Emma Stone) stumble into a romance that could be threatened if either of them makes it big.
This is one of those movies that came out to good reviews, then got some "but is it that good?" mild backlash. I definitely went into it thinking that it would be fun, especially since I like both lead actors and know from their previous work together that they have great chemistry.
While I liked the movie overall, it ultimately felt a bit . . . empty. There were quite a few sequences that were technically put together in a very strong way, but just failed to spark for me. For a musical, I didn't feel that many of the musical sequences added that much to the film. If you cut out every single song I actually think the film would have flowed better. (I did like "City of Stars", the song which won the best original song Oscar. But I honestly couldn't even hum a single other song from this film and I literally just finished it.)
Now, this is not to bash the musical productions themselves. The songs are not that memorable, but some of the visuals are really cool. A moment where the two of them suddenly walk on air in the darkness of an observatory is breathtaking, and some abstract touches in a final dance number evoke the kind of stylized imagery that I associate with something like
An American in Paris. In fact, it's almost as if all of the stylistic boldness was saved for the last 10 minutes of the movie.
I really wish that more of the musical numbers had been willing to go over the top and be more bold. Overall the film is just too gentle and tentative. There's a lot of people just stopping to sing their feelings with some nice, but predictable, choreography thrown in there.
Gosling and Stone are good in their roles, though their relationship is pretty shallow. I couldn't tell you why they fell in love or why they are a good match. They are the leads, so they fall in love. I wanted them to be happy, but the film never makes an argument for why they belong with each other. Even outside of their relationship, there's not a ton of character development.
I did enjoy some of the film's humor--such as Stone's character going to auditions where the other actresses all look like her and wear the same clothing, or some of the sequences of her reading absurd parts in auditions. Gosling and Stone both have good comic timing, and they get the most out of the writing.
(I can now offer an opinion that I couldn't until now, namely that
Moonlight DEFINITELY deserved its Best Picture win over this.
La La Land is fine and well-made, but it lacks soul.)